A20 • January 2022
Vestavia Voice
Opinion Sean of the South By Sean Dietrich
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10:40 p.m. — New makes my year. Year’s Eve. Hank Williams is on my radio. My 11:28 p.m. — I’m driving. My wife is still wife is sleeping in the passenger seat. My coonsawing logs. I’m riding hound is in the backseat. through the north FlorTo bring in the year, ida woods, sipping Coke. we’ve gone for a drive on Trees grow so high you can’t see the moon. It’s county roads that weave along the Choctawhatchee almost like poetry. Bay. Long ago, my college professor told us to There are no cars out. The highway is vacant — choose a poem to recite in Dietrich except for police cruisers. class. Students chose lofty I’ve never welcomed in a selections from the greats. year like this. Whitman, Dickinson, Frost. As a boy, my father and I brought in I consulted Daddy’s Hank Williams holidays with shotguns. We’d march to songbook. He’d given it to me before he the edge of creation and fire 12-gauges at died. He’d wanted to be a guitar player the moon. Then, I’d sip Coca-Cola; he’d once upon a time, but he was God-awful. He gave the instrument to me. sip something clear. I recited, “I’m So Lonesome I Could Another year goes by without him. Cry,” and made a D. I wasn’t doing it for the teacher. 11:02 p.m. — My tank is on E. I stop at a gas station. The pump card-reader is 11:40 p.m. — My Coke is almost broken. My wife is still out cold. I go inside to pay. The clerk is a young empty. I’m parked on the edge of the girl with purple hair. She wanted to be bay to watch fireworks. My coonhound with her kids tonight, but someone called is looking at me with red eyes. And I’m in with a sinus infection. writing to you, just like I do every day. I buy a Coca-Cola in a plastic bottle. Listen, I don’t remember how I started I also buy a scratch-off lotto ticket. The writing, or why. I have nothing valuable last few minutes of the year, I’m feeling to say, I don’t know any big words, and lucky. I use my keys to scratch the ticket. I’m as plain as they come. But I won’t lie I win $5. So, I buy another two. I win to you, it has been precious to me. another dollar. And so have you. “Lucky you,” the cashier says. “Wish These are my last words of the old year, I could buy one, but it’s against store my first words of the new: I love you. policy.” To hell with policy. It’s New Year’s Happy New Year. Eve. I buy her one. Sean Dietrich is a columnist and novShe swipes a coin from the take-a- elist known for his commentary on life in penny tray. She scratches. She wins $10. the American South. He has authored nine We high-five. books and is the creator of the “Sean of It’s only $10, but seeing her win the South” blog and podcast.
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